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Debian

Debian Drops SPARC Platform Support 152

Posted by Soulskill from the not-with-a-bang dept.
jones_supa writes: SPARC isn't exactly a highly-used architecture anymore, so the Debian operating system is dropping support for the platform, according to Joerg Jaspert last week in the "debian-sparc" mailing list. He noted that this does not block a later comeback as "sparc64." Following that announcement, a new post today tells us that SPARC support was just removed from the unstable, experimental and jessie-updates channels.

Submission + - First successful widely used symmetric cipher broken since before DES

Submitted by semper_statisticum
semper_statisticum writes: A team of cryptographers has submitted an outline of an attack against a symmetric cipher, which was one of the AES candidates.This is the first public successful attack against a symmetric cipher since before DES was introduced. Although the attack is only equivalent to a 2 bit reduction in security compared to a brute force attack, it is still an impressive development.

Submission + - Austerity Is just the class war (alternet.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: What’s going on with the austerity is really class war. As an economic program, austerity, under recession, makes no sense. It just makes the situation worse ..

It’s not an economic policy that makes any sense as to end a serious recession. And there is a reaction to it — Greece, Spain and some in Ireland, growing elsewhere, France. But it’s a very dangerous situation, could lead to a right-wing response, very right-wing. The alternative to Syriza might be Golden Dawn, neo-Nazi party.
Education

Microsoft To Launch Minecraft Education Portal For Teachers 56

Posted by samzenpus from the build-and-learn dept.
Mickeycaskill writes: Microsoft wants to help educators use Minecraft to teach pupils about maths, history, creative design and other subjects and skills, claiming the game is already being used in classrooms in the US and UK. Minecraft developer Mojang was bought by Microsoft last year for $2.5 billion and the game has been featured in a number of HoloLens demos, an indication of how it sees the former indie phenomenon as more than just a game. "Very soon after Minecraft launched, we noticed teachers bringing the game into their classrooms," said a blog post. "Often inspired by the passion of their students, they started using Minecraft to design history lessons, teach language classes, explore mathematics, physics, computer science, writing, and more."
Google

SCOTUS Denies Google's Request To Appeal Oracle API Case 181

Posted by samzenpus from the I-don't-want-to-hear-it dept.
New submitter Neil_Brown writes: The Supreme Court of the United States has today denied Google's request to appeal against the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling (PDF) that the structure, sequence and organization of 37 of Oracle's APIs (application program interfaces) was capable of copyright protection. The case is not over, as Google can now seek to argue that, despite the APIs being restricted by copyright, its handling amounts to "fair use". Professor Pamela Samuelson has previously commented (PDF) on the implications if SCOTUS declined to hear the appeal. The Verge reports: "A district court ruled in Google's favor back in 2012, calling the API "a utilitarian and functional set of symbols" that couldn't be tied up by copyrights. Last May, a federal appeals court overturned that ruling by calling the Java API copyrightable. However, the court said that Google could still have lawfully used the APIs under fair use, sending the case back to a lower court to argue the issue. That's where Google will have to go next, now that the Supreme Court has declined to hear the issue over copyright itself.

Submission + - Illinois Supreme Court: Comcast Must Identify Anonymous Internet Commenter (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In 2011, an anonymous person on the internet posted a comment to the Freeport Journal Standard newspaper implying that a local political candidate was pedophile. The candidate, Bill Hadley, took offense to this, and tried to get Comcast to tell him who the commenter was. Comcast refused, so Hadley took it to the courts. The Illinois Supreme Court has now ruled (PDF) that Comcast must divulge the commenter's identity. "Illinois' opinion was based in large part on a pair of earlier, lower-court decisions in the state, which held that the anonymity of someone who makes comments in response to online news stories isn't guaranteed if their opinions are potentially defamatory, according to Don Craven, an attorney for the Illinois Press Association."

Submission + - Amazon Overhauling Customer Reviews (cnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon says it's making some big changes to its product review system, one of the most heavily used on the internet and a vital part of Amazon's business. A machine-learning platform will endeavor to select helpful reviews with an emphasis on more recent ones. The average score will change as well: new reviews will be weighted higher than old reviews, as will ones from verified purchases and reviews voted up by other customers. "For example, sometimes a company will make small tweaks to a product or address some customer complaints, though this product isn't officially updated or renamed. With the new system, [Amazon] said, these small modifications should become more noticeable when shoppers are buying products." Because the review system is so important to customers, Amazon will be rolling out changes slowly, and watching for anything that breaks or gets skewed in unexpected ways.

Submission + - Windows 10 Will Be Free To Users Who Test It (theverge.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Microsoft has been making a big push to change its business model for Windows — likely due to the low/no cost updates you can get for competing operating systems. The company surprised everyone when it said legit copies of Windows 7 and 8 would be supplied with free upgrades, but now they're extending that even further: anyone who tests the Windows 10 Technical Preview will get a free upgrade to the full version of Windows 10 when it comes out. In a blog post, Microsoft's Gabe Aul said, "As long as you are running an Insider Preview build and connected with the MSA you used to register, you will receive the Windows 10 final release build and remain activated. Once you have successfully installed this build and activated, you will also be able to clean install on that PC from final media if you want to start over fresh."
Open Source

Reasons To Use Mono For Linux Development 355

Posted by samzenpus from the best-tools-for-the-job dept.
Nerval's Lobster writes: In the eleven years since Mono first appeared, the Linux community has regarded it with suspicion. Because Mono is basically a free, open-source implementation of Microsoft's .NET framework, some developers feared that Microsoft would eventually launch a patent war that could harm many in the open-source community. But there are some good reasons for using Mono, developer David Bolton argues in a new blog posting. Chief among them is MonoDevelop, which he claims is an excellent IDE; it's cross-platform abilities; and its utility as a game-development platform. That might not ease everybody's concerns (and some people really don't like how Xamarin has basically commercialized Mono as an iOS/Android development platform), but it's maybe enough for some people to take another look at the platform.

Submission + - San Francisco Public Schools to Require Computer Science for Preschoolers

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Never underestimate the ability of tech and its leaders to create a crisis. The S.F. Chronicle's Jill Tucker reports that the San Francisco School Board unanimously voted Tuesday to ensure every student in the district gets a computer science education, with coursework offered in every grade from preschool through high school, a first for a public school district. Tech companies, including Salesforce.com, as well as foundations and community groups are expected to pitch in funding and other technical support to create the new coursework, equip schools and train staff to teach it. From Resolution No. 155-26A2, In Support of Expanding Computer Science and Digital Learning to All Students at All Schools from Pre-K to 12th Grade: 1. "All students are capable of making sense of computer science in ways that are creative, interactive, and relevant." 2. All students, from pre-K to 12, deserve access to rigorous and culturally meaningful computer science education and should be held to high expectations for interacting with the curriculum." 3. "Students' access to and achievement in computer science must not be predictable on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, language, religion, sexual orientation, cultural affiliation, or special needs." MissionLocal has a two-page SFUSD flyer on the project, which aims to illustrate the "importance of computer science" with the same Code.org jobs infographic that Microsoft used to help achieve its stated goal of creating a national K-12 CS crisis, and demonstrate "disparities in accessing CS education" for SFUSD's 57,000 students with a small-sample-size-be-damned bar chart of the racial demographics of the school district's 209 AP Computer Science participants (181 Asian, 0 African American, 6 Latino, 1 Native American, 14 White, 7 Other).

Submission + - System76 Unveils the Fastest Ubuntu Laptop on the Planet

Submitted by prisoninmate
prisoninmate writes: System76 unveiled today what it would appear to be the fastest and most powerful Ubuntu laptop on the planet, powered by either the Ubuntu 15.04 or Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS Linux operating systems. Dubbed Serval WS, the laptop has been declared by the renown hardware company a pinnacle of performance, enclosed in an exceptionally high-quality finish, with backlit keyboard, and the fastest mobile GPUs from Nvidia. The laptop is available for pre-order starting June 9 and will be shipped in July.

Submission + - Sennheiser Top 50 Contest Closes Registrations On June 11 (rsjonline.com)

Submitted by johnwilliamss15
johnwilliamss15 writes: German audio company Sennheiser, in partnership with Amazon, launched the first edition of the Sennheiser Top 50 digital contest inviting independent bands from across the country to apply. Winners stand the chance to win some amazing prizes, including an endorser deal for two years by Sennheiser.

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